Penn State News

Magazine Rates Rolls Book Top Weight-Loss Plan
January 8, 2001
University Park, Pa. — New Year's resolutions have been made, and millions of people are searching bookstores for the fastest way to achieve their No. 1 goal for 2001 - lose weight. With hundreds of books promising instant results with little personal sacrifice, what do the experts recommend?

SELF, a leading fitness and nutrition magazine, has named Volumetrics: Feel Full on Fewer Calories, written by Barbara Rolls, Guthrie Chair of Nutrition in the College of Health and Human Development at Penn State (co-authored by Robert A. Barnett), the best weight-loss plan in America.

In the magazine's January 2001 issue, five leading weight-management experts unanimously voted Volumetrics as the No. 1 weight-loss plan for its healthful regimen that helps followers feel satisfied, not deprived of food, and because it delivers a slow, steady and permanent weight-loss.

The experts used an exhaustive 30-item questionnaire to rate 13 of America's most popular weight-loss plans. Volumetrics received the rating of "A" and had the highest combined score in the survey, and competed against many popular weight-loss plans including The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet (Heller and Heller), Sugar Busters! (Steward et al.), Enter the Zone (Sears) and Dr. Atkin's New Diet Revolution (Atkins).

The idea behind Volumetrics is simple: eat low-calorie-dense, high-volume foods so that you feel like you have eaten plenty, even though you have eaten fewer calories. "The message that is often given - just eat less and eat smaller portions - can really undermine a weight loss program, because people will end up feeling hungry all the time," says Rolls. "

What we teach people in the book is how to continue to eat satisfying portions of food, while cutting the calories in the portions." The book recommends fiber-rich, air and water-packed foods because they deliver volume for few calories.

Rolls says an important component in a successful weight-loss plan is the amount of water in food. "This is a new discovery. We didn't know water was contributing so much to how our foods affect how much we eat and how satisfied we feel." She says the most important way to increase the water content of meals is to increase the intake of fruits and vegetables, which are primarily water, and most can be eaten in unlimited quantities.

Volumetrics was published last year by HarperCollins and was recently released in paperback with the title The Volumetrics Weight-Control Plan: Feel Full on Fewer Calories.